The most recent reported hail day was 2025-06-25 -- 1 year ago, with nothing reported since. Rutherford County is hit in most years. The largest stone on record here is 2.75 inches, a baseball and 2.8 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2024-05-08 near Lake Lure.
Colored swath = NOAA MRMS radar-estimated hail size; dots = NOAA SPC reports in North Carolina. Radar-indicated, not a guarantee of damage.
The last hail here fell on 2025-06-25, around Forest City. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Rutherford County addresses inside a hail swath above your size threshold into a door-knock list you can export, scoped to your approved markets.
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See call-center options ->NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has logged 28 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.6 a year over 17 years of record. They carry 50 reports in total: most hail days here are logged from a single spot. 3 of those 17 years produced none at all. One year dominates the record: 2011 alone produced 6 of the 28 days. The last five years have been quieter than the long run: 5 days since 2022, against 1.9 a year before that.
Most hail here stays under 2 inches: only 2 of the 28 days on record passed it, 7%, the last on 2024-05-08. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in April, not May. Golf-ball size is rarer still: 1.75 inches or more on 6 of the 28 days.
Across the whole of North Carolina, see the North Carolina hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Forest City -- 9 of the county's 28 hail days -- then Rutherfordton (9), Thermal City (6), Lake Lure (5) and Ellenboro (5). Beyond those, NOAA names Spindale on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Forest City | 5 | 1.00″ |
| Ellenboro | 3 | 1.75″ |
| 6 W Thermal City | 3 | 1.00″ |
| Lake Lure | 2 | 2.75″ |
| 4 Nw Rutherfordton | 2 | 1.75″ |
The season runs May through August: 24 of the 28 hail days on record fall in those 4 months (86%). May is the single busiest month, with 10 of them (36%). That peak opens the window: the season starts at its worst and eases off from there. Hail has also been reported in April and September, outside that window. Reports span 6 of the 12 calendar months; the other 6 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| April | 2 |
| May | 10 |
| June | 7 |
| July | 4 |
| August | 3 |
| September | 2 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Forest City. No hail day has been reported here yet this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-06-25 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-05-08 | 1.50″ | 6 |
| 2024-05-08 | 2.75″ | 4 |
| 2023-07-02 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2022-05-06 | 1.75″ | 2 |
| 2019-08-21 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2018-07-21 | 1.75″ | 3 |
| 2017-07-23 | 1.00″ | 1 |
The colored swath is NOAA's MRMS radar estimate of the largest hail per ~1 km cell; the dots are SPC ground reports. Yellow is about an inch, red 1.5 to 2″, purple 2″ and up (hail size vs roof damage). On this county's worst day the reports reached 2.75 inches, which is the purple band. Look up a street address with the hail history by address tool.
The nearest counties with a page of their own, over the state line included: McDowell County (29 hail days), Cleveland County (24), Burke County (57) and Cherokee County, South Carolina (18). Rutherford County sits in between.
McDowell County · Cleveland County · Burke County · Cherokee County, South Carolina
Back to the North Carolina hail map or the U.S. hail map.
Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Rutherford County, North Carolina only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.